Web Usability Tips for Creating User-Friendly Websites

Creating a user-friendly website is crucial for engaging your audience and driving conversions. A well-designed website should be intuitive and easy to navigate, with clear calls-to-action that guide visitors through the desired experience.

Research has shown that users judge a website's credibility within 50 milliseconds, making a good first impression essential. This is especially true for e-commerce sites, where trust is built through clear product information and secure payment processing.

A cluttered or confusing website can lead to frustration and abandonment, with 47% of users reporting that they wouldn't return to a website after a bad experience. By keeping your design clean and simple, you can reduce bounce rates and increase user satisfaction.

Website usability is crucial for any online presence, and it's essential to understand its importance. Website usability is about providing well-organized, useful, and easy-to-navigate information in a well-structured format.

Following website usability standards can improve your conversion rate, which means more people will stay engaged with your site, click on your calls to action, and complete their purchases with a seamless checkout UX.

There are 7 key principles of outstanding website usability that you can keep in mind when designing your visitors' experience.

Accessibility and Clarity are key components of web usability.

The power of the Web is in its universality, and access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.

Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that can affect access to sites, including auditory, physical, visual, verbal, and neurological.

Accessible design also benefits people without disabilities, including older adults with changing abilities.

Users come to your site or app with specific goals in mind, and your job is to help them reach those goals as quickly and easily as possible.

Providing a clear, simple, consistent design guides people through their journey on your site and lowers abandonment rates.

Consistently using descriptive “alt” tags that describe the information or function represented by the image is crucial for users with visual impairments.

All links should be identified in the markup using either native HTML elements or ARIA attributes for users with low vision and those assisted by screen readers.

Place your form field labels close to their associated form fields and make them programmatically discernable by assistive technology.

Complex site elements like rotating image carousels should have keyboard-operable controls, like the Walmart example below.

Filter menus should be navigable using a keyboard, and provide screen reader–accessible contextual information alongside the filter menu and menu options.

If the website has all the information that visitors need but it is difficult to find, having the information becomes useless.

The more effectively a site helps the audience find the required information, the more usable it is, as seen on Amazon's advanced search option.

More than 52% of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices, making mobile usability a huge part of website usability. If a website is not mobile-friendly, 50% of customers will stop visiting that site even if they are a fan of the company or brand.

Mobile usability is crucial to avoid losing sales to competitors. A website that is not mobile-friendly can lead to a significant loss of customers.

Multilingual usability is also important, as it means optimizing your website or app for more than one language and culture. This process is also known as localization, which includes localization of language, visual elements, and user interface components.

More than 52% of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. This means that if your website isn't mobile-friendly, you're likely losing sales to your competitors.

If a website is not mobile-friendly, 50% of customers report they will stop visiting that site even if they are a fan of the company or brand. This is a clear indication that mobile usability is crucial for any business.

At Amazon, the “Install App” ad was automatically removed once a user moved from the homepage to viewing search results. This lowered distraction levels for the user and kept the focus on the content.

Prominent, difficult-to-close advertisements to install your app can obscure critical elements of your mobile site. Consider removing the “Install App” ad on your mobile site, or at the very least, deemphasize it by displaying it only on select landing pages and removing it after a specified amount of time.

A multilingual website is a game-changer for businesses that want to reach a global audience. Multilingual usability means optimizing your website or app for more than one language and culture so speakers of multiple languages can use it.

You may also see this process referred to as “localization,” which involves adapting your website to suit different languages and cultures. Localization of language, visual elements, and user interface components is key to multilingual design.

This means considering things like text translation, layout adjustments, and even different color schemes to ensure your website is accessible and user-friendly for people from different backgrounds.

E-commerce sites can benefit from a deep understanding of users' contexts, accommodating their limitations such as environment, distractions, and cognitive load.

The Baymard Institute's 71,000+ hours of research have led to the development of 21 data-driven e-commerce website usability best practices, used by 71% of all Fortune 500 e-commerce companies.

A design's usability depends on how well its features accommodate users' needs and contexts, making it essential to address usability after determining the item's utility.

Here are the 5 elements of usability:

If you're looking to boost your e-commerce site's user experience, you're in the right place. Here are 7 quick UX fixes to get you started.

1. Provide clear information on user location: Let users know where they are on your website by providing clear URLs, changing the color of visited links, or visual indications of the section being used. This helps users easily proceed or go back.

2. Use graphics and images wisely: Use graphics and images to communicate your message, not just to beautify your site. This helps users learn faster and avoids distractions.

3. Make your site easy to navigate: A good user experience is all about guiding users through the easiest and least labor-intensive route. This means you must accommodate users' limitations, such as their environment, distractions, and cognitive load.

4. Help users avoid errors: Prevent erroneous actions by helping users perform targeted actions in the interface using hints. This also means supporting a range of user actions and only showing errors in genuine erroneous situations.

5. Make your site easy to learn: New users should be able to accomplish goals easily and even more easily on future visits. A design with high usability guides users through the easiest route.

6. Use usability elements: A design's usability depends on how well its features accommodate users' needs and contexts. This includes effectiveness, efficiency, engagement, error tolerance, ease of learning, and more.

7. Test and refine: The key to great UX is continuous testing and refinement. Use your users' feedback to improve your site's usability and user experience.

These 7 quick UX fixes are based on research from Baymard Institute, which has spent over 150,000 hours studying e-commerce best practices. By implementing these fixes, you'll be well on your way to creating a user-friendly e-commerce site that drives sales and customer satisfaction.

More than 52% of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. This means that if your website isn't mobile-friendly, you're likely to lose customers.

Fifty percent of customers report they will stop visiting a site even if they're a fan of the company or brand if it's not mobile-friendly. That's a huge loss of potential sales.

Removing or downplaying the "Install App" ad on mobile sites can help improve the user experience. At Amazon, this ad was automatically removed when users moved from the homepage to search results.

Prominent, difficult-to-close advertisements to install your app can obscure critical elements of your mobile site. Consider removing the "Install App" ad on your mobile site.

If you must use an "Install App" ad, deemphasize it by displaying it only on select landing pages and removing it after a specified amount of time.

A clear and uncluttered design is essential for good usability. It should mimic the real world regarding concepts, icons, and language.

To achieve this, consider using a proper font size, color, contrast, and whitespace to make your content instantly understandable. This means avoiding forced logins and pop-ups, which can disrupt the user experience.

A good design should also follow established norms regarding function and layout, such as logo positioning and tappable buttons. This helps users feel familiar with your website.

Use chunking to emphasize key information at the beginning and end of interactive sequences. This can include warnings and autocorrect features to minimize errors.

Here are some key principles to keep in mind:

Avoid horizontal scrolling by using an appropriate page layout. This will help users find the desired information with ease.

Using graphics and images on your website can be a double-edged sword. Consistently use descriptive "alt" tags that describe the information or function represented by the image to help users with visual impairments.

Decorative graphics can distract users and delay the process of finding information. Use graphics/images for communicating your message to the users rather than beautifying the site.

Make sure that graphics/images don't slow page download times. Using thumbnail versions of large images can enable users to see a preview without having to download them.

Graphics and images should not affect page load time. To ensure effective use of thumbnails, you can use a relevance-enhanced image reduction method.

Use multimedia meaningfully, such as video, audio, or animation, to help convey the website's message or content. The unnecessary use of multimedia can distract users from more important items and affect page load time.

A user-centric approach is essential for creating a website that truly meets the needs of its users. This involves understanding who your users are and what tasks they'll be performing on your site.

To achieve this, you can use personas, which are made-up representative users, to help designers stay focused on the user's needs. Designers must also understand the cognitive and emotional characteristics of users and how they'll relate to a proposed system.

By understanding your users and their tasks, you can design a website that's easy to use and navigate, preventing erroneous actions and ensuring that users can complete their tasks efficiently.

A user-centric approach is all about putting the user at the forefront of your design process. This means understanding who your users are, what they want to achieve, and how they will interact with your product or system.

Usability considerations, such as who the users are and their experience with similar systems, must be examined. Designers must understand how cognitive and emotional characteristics of users will relate to a proposed system.

To stress the importance of these issues in the designers' minds, personas can be used. Personas are made-up representative users that help designers put themselves in their users' shoes. Another method is to have a panel of potential users work closely with the design team from the early stages.

Getting to know the user is crucial before they access a full-fledged interface. You can ask clarifying questions to assess their level and need for certain functionality. This helps designers create a system that meets the users' needs and expectations.

Cognitive walkthrough is a method of evaluating the user interaction of a working prototype or final product. It's used to evaluate the system's ease of learning and understand the user's thought processes and decision making when interacting with a system.

Usability tests involve typical users using the system (or product) in a realistic environment. Observation of the user's behavior, emotions, and difficulties while performing different tasks often identify areas of improvement for the system.

The RITE method, or Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation, is an iterative usability method that involves testing and making changes to the user interface as soon as a problem is identified. This can occur after observing as few as 1 participant.

When you're navigating a website, it's easy to get lost. Let the users know where they are on the website so that they can easily proceed or go back.

Providing clear URLs indicating the user’s location is a simple yet effective way to do this. This helps users keep track of their journey and make informed decisions about what to do next.

Clear URLs also help users know where they've been, which can be especially useful if they need to revisit a previous page. For example, a website might change the colour of a link that has been visited to indicate that the user has already seen it.

This visual indication helps users avoid revisiting the same page multiple times, which can save them time and reduce frustration. Want to take your online business to the next level? Get the tips and insights that matter.

Testing and evaluation are crucial steps in ensuring the usability of your website. Usability evaluation methods can be further classified into subcategories, including testing methods that involve testing subjects for quantitative data.

Testing methods, such as usability tests, involve typical users using the system in a realistic environment and observing their behavior, emotions, and difficulties while performing different tasks. These tests can identify areas of improvement for the system.

Empirical measurement is another approach that involves testing the system early on with real users using behavioral measurements. This method emphasizes measurement, both informal and formal, which can be carried out through various evaluation methods.

Usability tests involve typical users using the system in a realistic environment, often recorded on video to provide task completion time and observation of attitude.

Testing methods can be further classified into empirical measurement, which includes testing the system early on and using behavioral measurements.

Test the system early on, and test the system on real users using behavioral measurements, as this is crucial in identifying areas of improvement for the system.

Usability tests involve observation of the user's behavior, emotions, and difficulties while performing different tasks, which can often identify areas of improvement for the system.

The emphasis of empirical measurement is on measurement, both informal and formal, which can be carried out through a variety of evaluation methods.

Usability metrics are used to identify what is being measured, and these metrics can be variable, changing in conjunction with the scope and goals of the project.

The number of subjects being tested can affect usability metrics, as it is often easier to focus on specific demographics.

Using inexpensive prototypes on small user groups provides more detailed information, as the designer can focus more on the individual user.

Testing equipment will become more sophisticated and testing metrics become more quantitative as the designs become more complex.

Designers often test effectiveness, efficiency, and subjective satisfaction by asking the users to complete various tasks, which are measured by metrics such as percent completion, time to complete tasks, and user satisfaction ratings.

Additional observations of the users give designers insight on navigation difficulties, controls, conceptual models, and other usability issues.

Usability tests provide modified design guidelines for continued testing, rather than generating a solution to the problems.

Tree testing is a way to evaluate the effectiveness of a website's top-down organization. Participants are given "find it" tasks, then asked to drill down through successive text lists of topics and subtopics to find a suitable answer.

Tree testing evaluates the findability and labeling of topics in a site, separate from its navigation controls or visual design. This makes it a valuable tool for understanding how users interact with your website.

To conduct a tree test, participants are presented with a series of text lists of topics and subtopics. They're then asked to find a specific piece of information within those lists.

The goal of tree testing is to identify areas where users are struggling to find what they're looking for. By doing so, you can make informed decisions about how to improve your website's organization and labeling.

Remote testing is a great way to gather user feedback without the need for dedicated facilities. This style of user testing allows you to simulate real-life scenario testing by having users complete tasks in their own environment.

Remote usability testing involves the use of a specially modified online survey, which can generate large sample sizes or provide a deep qualitative analysis. This approach also provides an opportunity to segment feedback by demographic, attitudinal, and behavioral type.

There are two types of remote usability testing: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative studies use large sample sizes and task-based surveys to validate suspected usability issues.

Qualitative studies are best used for exploratory research, often with small sample sizes but frequent iterations. They allow for observing respondent's screens and verbal think-aloud commentary, providing a richer level of insight.